


i will never leave you / heaven knows i won't

by helenecixous



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, i've basically rewritten the whole show and made it gay, it's essentially an au lmao, none of this happens in the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 14:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10573074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenecixous/pseuds/helenecixous
Summary: Annalise sitting cross legged on Bonnie’s sofa, wearing one of Bonnie’s paint-splattered Jefferson Airplane t shirts that’s about eighty sizes too big for either of them, a carton of chow mein between her legs and a glass of martini in her hand isn’t a sight that Bonnie’s likely to forget any time soon.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title from don't - elvis, because i can't stop listening to the big little lies soundtrack and zoe kravitz owes me a million pounds
> 
> OKAY SO season 3 made me like frank? and that's weird because i spent season 1 being unsure about him and season 2 hating his guts and then season 3 punched me in the face with all of those Friendship Feels. i really liked how they explored more of the dynamics between annalise/frank/bonnie and i wanted to do that too. that's where this started and i'm sorry it's so fuckin long
> 
> none of this is canon-compliant. literally none of it, apart from bonnie's tragic backstory and sam's, uh, extracurricular activities. the keating 5 that we know don't exist in this version of events. i just wanted to take these three characters and write them a history, and this is what they wanted to do, so ,,,, here we are. i love viola davis and annalise keating, and liza weil and bonnie winterbottom do too B))
> 
> also there's a fair few references to rape/sexual abuse so ,, if you're sensitive to that pls don't read it ok or like, look after yourself if u go ahead anyways up xo

It’s the kind of case that won’t ever end.

A death row case.

Annalise hasn’t slept properly for days. Her prodigies aren’t delivering, her mind isn’t working, the prosecutors aren’t playing ball, and she has half a mind to kill somebody herself to get out of the hellscape that is her career. And on top of that, on top of every single other thing that’s gone to total shit, one of her students just had to go and sleep with a lawyer and blab her entire defense plan.

So they lose. She loses. And she’s marching furiously from the courtroom, the four students in tow, sheepish, quiet, and she turns around before the door has even closed behind them.

“Tell me you’re looking for another job, for another  _ fucking  _ professor,” she hisses, and the other three shrink away from her fury, leaving their peer in her direct line of sight.

He’s floundering, getting shirty, trying to come up with some bullshit excuse, some personal attack that might allay her quiet rage, and she’s shaking her head, striding toward him. “You and your cock have cost an innocent man his life,” she spits, shoving her hands into her pockets as though she’s scared she might strangle him if she gives them freedom. “You’ve cost four  _ children  _ their  _ father,  _ and you’ve lost yourself the best career opportunity of your  _ life.  _ I hope she was fucking worth it.”

“You can’t just fire me-” he’s saying, but she’s not watching him anymore, not listening. She tells the others to get back to the house before she fires them too, and takes a hold of a passing student’s arm, bringing her to a halt.

“Winterbottom, isn’t it?” she asks, and then: “do you want a job?”

 

For Bonnie, learning the layout of Annalise Keating's house takes about two days. Learning the name of Annalise's husband takes two weeks, and learning the name of her - assistant? Assistant-slash-hitman? Lover? That takes months. He strides through the house with his beard and his sharp waistcoats and his lazy, arrogant drawl, fixing her and her fellow students with a look of such immaculate disinterest that Bonnie’s sure he must practice at home. He doesn't bother talking to any of them, and the only thing Bonnie can tell for sure about him is that he adores Annalise. She catches him watching her with such a raw  _ hurt,  _ a totally unbridled desperation for her approval, with such a love (or lust?) that makes Bonnie ache for him, and she's not sure why. As far as she can tell, Annalise is mostly apathetic toward him, but the colder she gets, the harder he tries to impress her. She learns Frank’s name by accident.

 

For weeks, Bonnie isn’t anything more than background noise. And she isn’t even that: she’s just a presence, quiet, inconsequential, a silent solution to cases that the others find uncrackable. She watches them work, finds herself wondering how they even got to their final year of law school, how they even got other degrees to get here in the first place, and why on earth Annalise had picked them out in the first place. And then she berates herself for being cruel, because she’s trying - she’s trying  _ so hard _ to be a better person, even in her head.

So it's a surprise that Annalise notices her, that she praises her for understanding the things she doesn’t teach them - for getting the way she files things and for knowing which strategy will minimise the collateral damage and keep her list of enemies short. She somehow manages to mostly avoid her professor’s wrath, and she knows that her peers don’t like her, don’t trust her, probably for that reason. Even she can tell that there’s something different in the way Annalise looks at her, the way she talks to her - softly, as though she’s something undiscovered, something that needs gentle and persistent encouragement to grow and become something that (she hopes) might be equal to Annalise one day.

Perhaps it’s because Annalise sees herself in Bonnie, or perhaps - and this is the option that keeps Bonnie up at night - Annalise can see her for what she is: damaged and deserving, somehow, of unimaginable cruelty, a ticking time-bomb that’s not stable enough to handle what she dishes out to everybody else. That’s a thought she’s bought into for the majority of her life, and yet sometimes,  _ sometimes, _ when she looks up and she meets her professor’s gaze, or when Annalise sighs at the others, exasperated, and tells them to ‘be more like Bonnie - at least she knows what the hell she’s doing here’, or when she comes downstairs in her dressing gown to lock up and finds Bonnie still there, still working, and sits down to offer her some vodka, Bonnie allows herself to think that maybe, just  _ maybe _ , it could be the former. That she can be something more than her trauma, something better than her past.

 

Frank scoffs when she excuses herself from their briefing, and as she passes him he mutters something about liberal daisies not being able to handle the truth of the world. She shuts the bathroom door behind her and leans on it heavily, breathing sharply and quickly and trying to ignore the burn of tears before she clamps a hand over her mouth and lowers herself to the floor, kneeling on the cold tiles as she leans over the toilet bowl. She throws up quietly, trembling, crying almost silently until she has to gasp for air, sucking in oxygen as her body tries to do a thousand things at once, and then she’s flushing the toilet and leaning against the wall, holding her forehead and sobbing. She’s furious with herself, furious with Frank, furious that she knows the ‘truth of the world’ better than he ever fucking will, furious that she’s never going to make it, never going to be a lawyer because this is what happens to her when she’s asked to defend fucking rapists.

She doesn’t know how long she spends there. Long enough that there’s a soft tap on it and then it’s opening, and Annalise is coming in. She closes the door carefully behind her and sighs, and then she’s sitting on the floor next to Bonnie, grabbing some tissue and offering it to her silently.

“I’m sorry,” Bonnie eventually says, wiping her eyes and tugging her jumper, twisting it anxiously between her fingers. “I should’ve waited until you’d finished. I’ll catch up.”

Annalise just looks at her, her expression caught somewhere between sympathy and disbelief. “Is this going to be a problem?” she asks, and Bonnie winces.

“I’m working on it,” she says, quickly. “I promise. I’m just tired. It caught me off guard and it won’t happen again.”

Annalise rubs her cheek slowly, and sighs again. “My husband’s a therapist,” she says. “Well, he prefers the term ‘psychologist’, but it’s all the same. Are you seeing anybody?”

She shakes her head no, and tries to formulate an excuse. “I’m okay, really. I don’t need to see anybody and I don’t want to intrude.”

“Ah. Silly me, I was under the impression that I had just offered my husband’s professional help to you willingly.”

Bonnie laughs, and it’s tired but it isn’t as shaky as she’d expected it to be.

“See how you go?” Annalise asks, and when she reaches out to tuck Bonnie’s hair behind her ear, Bonnie realises that the year won’t be a simple one. Annalise stands up and leaves Bonnie to clean up properly, and Bonnie doesn’t know what to call the warm but insistent, vaguely nauseating tremble in her gut.

 

“Are you going home for Christmas?”

They're sorting out some case files, putting older ones toward the back and bringing the newer and unfinished ones forward - Sam's away, and Bonnie has been seeing him for almost a month.

“No,” she says, lightly. “Philly is home, I'm going to get one of those Christmas meals in a can.”

Annalise laughs, sits back and rubs her calves, wincing. “You're not seeing anybody? Family, I mean.” 

“What's this, an interrogation? Sam put you up to tailing me now?”

“Sam's not put me up to anything.”

Bonnie smiles, glancing at Annalise as she pulls another box to her. “Yeah, I know. As if you'd let him tell you what to do at any point.”

Annalise rolls her eyes but doesn't deny it, and then she sighs, standing up. “You would think, wouldn't you, that a group of fairly well trained third year lawyers-to-be wouldn't need an entire week to study for an exam that's supposed to be written for first years.”

“It'll be worth it when they get careers and make you look good.” She cranes her neck to watch Annalise stretch, rolling her shoulders and groaning quietly. A blush begins to spread, and she tucks her hair behind her ear, looking back down at the files without really seeing them.

“At least one of you seem to know what you’re doing,” Annalise mutters, and kicks off her heels. “Do you want a coffee before your brain starts oozing from your ears?”

Bonnie stifles a laugh, and looks up again. “Please,” she says, and as Annalise walks to the kitchen she’s totally distracted by the way her hips move, by the way the cold winter sunlight is dripping through the windows, pooling on the expanse of floor and catching Annalise’s edges, making her seem impossibly soft, and almost otherworldly.

“You could stay here,” Annalise calls from the kitchen, over the noise of the coffee machine.

“What?”

“You could stay here. For Christmas, if you want. I mean, Sam’s evil sister will be here, but they’ll just end up getting drunk together in the study.”

Bonnie stays silent, tries to subdue the warmth that spreads through her like wildfire, a mellowness that doesn’t quite make sense, and waits until Annalise returns with their drinks. “Sam has an evil sister?” she asks, taking the mug and crossing her legs beneath her, grateful for the break.

“Hannah Keating. Probably the worst person in the world,” Annalise says, sitting down on the sofa and smiling. “Her favourite hobby is coming over here and terrorising me, and making Sam take her side. She’s a psychologist too, god knows that bullshit must be in their genes.”

“Sounds like a real charmer.”

“You wouldn’t believe it until you met her.”

“I don’t think I could possibly bear to impose.”

Annalise raises an eyebrow and watches Bonnie over the rim of her coffee mug. “You wouldn’t be imposing,” she says. “Christmas isn’t a time for sitting in shitty student apartments with canned Christmas meals alone.”

“It’s just a time for spending time with evil sister-in-laws with terroristic tendencies?”

“You’re so funny.”

“Tell your raised eyebrow that,” Bonnie says. “Are you sure Sam wouldn’t mind?”

“What’s one more filled seat at a table? I always cook enough to feed a small army anyway. And I’m no gourmet chef, but I’m almost certain that it’ll be better than anything you get from Walmart that comes in a can.”

A shiver tries to bubble to Bonnie’s surface, makes her tense and relaxed all at the same time, and for some reason that she doesn’t want to define, she can’t look Annalise in the eye. “What about Frank? Is he gonna be there?”

Annalise raises her eyebrow again and sips her coffee. “Why? You got a crush on him? You wouldn’t be the first.”

“No, no, no. God, no. I just don’t feel like he likes me so much.”

“That’s the thing about Frank,” Annalise sighs, but there’s no real venom in her tone. “He either wants to sleep with you, or won’t even bother to look at you when you speak to him.”

“I’d noticed.” She pauses, running her fingertips over the rim of her mug as she carefully chooses her next words. “He seems to really care for you.”

Annalise shrugs and reaches to pluck a file from the box nearest to her and flick through it lazily. “Frank’s Frank. He chooses who to care for and then he cares a lot.” She looks up. “As far as I know, he’s going home for Christmas. Either that or he’ll be at his apartment with two of his five girlfriends. So… do you fancy coming or not?”

Bonnie’s glad that Annalise is thumbing through the files, glad that she doesn’t have to look up and meet her eye, glad that Annalise isn’t going to see the blush on her cheeks and the slight tremble of her fingers. “I think that’d be nice,” she says, her voice small as she turns her attention back to the files. “Thank you.”

 

It’s the first Christmas she can remember enjoying. And she enjoys it a lot, even with Sam and Hannah joining forces and between them, seeming unable to leave Annalise the hell alone. But Annalise, to her credit, is good at humouring them and even better at cooking. She makes them all wear stupid Santa hats and pull crackers, and doesn’t bite back when Hannah asks her if she’s finally quit defending criminals and got some morals yet.

It takes them until six in the evening to lock themselves away in the study with bottles that Bonnie doesn’t catch the labels on. Sam asks Annalise if it’s okay if he leaves her and Bonnie to have some time while he catches up with Hannah, thanks her for the food and his present (a Rolex), and kisses her. Bonnie looks away as he winds an arm around Annalise’s waist and kisses her in a way that makes Bonnie’s stomach twist, and when Annalise firmly pushes him away and hands him two bottles and two glasses, Bonnie can hardly keep the smile off her face.

And so the two of them end up upstairs with cocktails, bowls of leftover food, ice cream, and terrible TV Christmas films and Christmas specials - two vodka martinis past sober.

“This was, today was really nice, Annalise, thank you.”

“What are you thanking me for?” Annalise asks, turning her head to watch Bonnie, a slow smile on her face. “It’s Christmas - and as far as Christmases go, it’s been pretty subpar. I’m sure it would’ve been infinitely more enjoyable without that lovely mutual sparring over the turkey.”

Bonnie laughs, that kind of almost-drunken giggle that’s impossible to contain once it gets going. “God, she’s terrible,” she says, covering her eyes with her hand. “Honestly, what a deal breaker. How do you put  _ up  _ with that? I’m sorry, I didn’t expect her to be that bad, but  _ really. _ ”

“Oh, I know!” Annalise says, and she’s laughing, moving closer to grab some ice cream. She smells musky, like vanilla and something like cinnamon, and Bonnie’s stomach does an involuntary flip.

She thinks that Annalise is undefinable, that there’s not one single word in the whole of the English language that will do her beauty justice. It’s easy to forget, lying on the bed that her professor shares with her husband, that Sam’s just downstairs. It’s easy to forget with the alcohol in her blood, clouding her inhibitions and sharpening the thoughts and feelings she’s been trying to push away for months, that she can’t just reach out and kiss Annalise - that she can’t just be kissed by her, that she can’t wake up here every morning and see the way that Annalise is looking at her; like she’s the only thing in the world worth seeing. It’s easy to forget that this isn’t forever.

 

Eventually, she graduates. The months leading up to it, working under Annalise, they seem to pass sluggishly and yet unbearably, giddily quickly. She doesn’t even have time to consider what she wants to do, what she  _ could  _ do, which firms she could apply to, before Annalise offers her a job. “I need you here,” she says, swirling the vodka around her glass contemplatively. “You’re the only one from that lot who’s any good at this type of work. They’ll all go on to push paperwork for firms that nobody’s heard of and defend petty criminals until they’re old enough to retire, and then right before they do - they’ll be laid off and made redundant.”

They’re sitting in the study, on the same side of the desk. It’s getting late and when Annalise reaches forward to check the time, Bonnie becomes aware of the face that their legs are touching, and the warmth that spreads through her is ridiculous.

“And me?” Bonnie asks, her own tumbler in front of her, untouched. “What about me?”

“You’ll build a career.” As if it’s that simple. “You’ll build a career and you’ll climb and you’ll be able to do whatever you want to do. Not one door will be closed.”

“But I don’t know what I want to do, Annalise.” She does. She wants to stay here, to work here, to be able to stay with Annalise in whatever capacity is offered to her. But as attractive as that thought it, it’s more fucking terrifying to sit here now and have it offered to her, offered up as easily and as casually as if it’s the last bowl of her favourite ice cream.

“Well, think on it.” Annalise looks at her and gives her a smile that might be a little knowing. “Just think on it while you’re working here. You’ve got time.”

Minutes go by, fill the silence and the space between them with something liquid and unknown, until Annalise drains her glass and puts it down, and the noise it makes as it makes contact with the desk is almost enough to make Bonnie wince. It fills her up, pushes her toward that inevitable and yet elusive  _ yes,  _ that word that refuses to cooperate, and she takes a breath, starts to speak, and the door opens suddenly enough to actually make her flinch this time.

“Annalise.” It’s Frank. “The Rivers case is open, and both Smithson  _ and  _ Chambers are trying to grab it. We should-”

“Frank.” Her tone is sharp enough that it should cut, and Bonnie half expects to see him buckle, to falter, to wither before her very eyes. She’s surprised that he doesn’t. He just stares at Annalise, and something nameless and silent flickers over his expression. “Could you learn to  _ knock.” _

“But this is importa-”

“I know you think that you’re the best god-given gift on this planet, but I’m  _ busy  _ right now, okay? Do whatever you think has to be done, but if you burst in here like that one more time, I swear to god that I will fire you.”

He inclines his head just slightly; the only indicator that he’d heard her, and as he turns to leave he fixes Bonnie with such a furious stare that she recoils slightly, and then he’s gone and the door is closed.

“I’d like to work here,” Bonnie says, finally reaching for her glass. “It’s nice to actually be able to see the differences that we make.”

Annalise smiles, looks at Bonnie like she’s actually proud, and Bonnie can  _ feel  _ her past and her fears slide from her, and they don’t disappear completely but they feel out of reach, like things that never really belonged to her in the first place.

 

And so for the summer it’s just the three of them, multiple cases, and one big house. Sam’s away in Tennessee doing some sort of secondment, and Frank can’t seem to stand even the sight of Bonnie. She’s heard him whispering furiously to Annalise, about how they don’t  _ need  _ a third person, that Bonnie was only slowing things down, and Annalise’s replies are always so low, so murmured, that she can never catch what she’s saying. And then there’s always silence, broken only by the occasional footstep or the scrape of a moving chair. Sometimes the silence lasts for ten minutes, sometimes only two, and then Frank always ends up emerging from whichever closed door they’re behind, and refuses to look at Bonnie as he passes. Dimly, she wonders whether they’re having an affair. The thought annoys her more than it should, and she begins to cultivate something sharp that feels like jealousy, and something deeper that she understands to be a deep, deep dislike for the man.

 

Neither of them attempt to spend any time together outside of cases; they orbit Annalise and make sure that they don’t ever collide, and for a while that seems to work at keeping the peace. And then they’re out together, silent, both of them giving the other no more than curt responses and almost-sneers that would be full sneers, if they were that kind of people. And then Frank gets out of the car without warning, while Bonnie’s getting her things together. She watches him approach a woman in a business suit, and stays where she is, waiting. Minutes later, he comes back out, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets, gets back into the car, slams the door, and refuses to talk to her for the entire ride back.

When they get back to Annalise’s house, Bonnie tries to tell her about the key witness they’d been tailing, but Frank interrupts her by shaking his hand from his pocket and handing Annalise something that Bonnie sees is a ring. Her jaw drops, and Annalise looks at it and then up at him, and she smiles.

“I think it’s your size,” Frank says, watching as Annalise slides it onto her finger and holds up her hand to admire it.

“Who did you steal this one from?” she asks, but there’s no real rebuttal in her tone. On the contrary, this is the closest Bonnie has seen Annalise get to actually  _ beaming  _ at him.

“Does it matter? She’s a nobody. Plus, you don’t have to report what you don’t know,” Frank says, and he’s looking straight at Bonnie as Annalise reaches up to press a chaste kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you,” she says, and then, “you’re gonna have to stop breaking the law someday.”

“Why?” he returns. “I’ll stop breaking the law when people stop wearing things that would look infinitely better on you.”

Bonnie shifts, crosses her arms and sees herself out of the room silently, her head reeling. She should be aghast, she  _ should  _ be absolutely horrified, mortified that she’d been associated with a man who steals things for his boss - that she works for a woman who is clearly so at ease with having things stolen for her - that she’s supposed to be working with the law, not being so blatantly involved with the total disregard for it. She should, by rights, despise them both for being so entitled, and yet all she can think of is the way Frank had looked at her, the way Annalise had looked at him. All she can think of is how she could, would,  _ wants to  _ one up him, to give Annalise everything she’s ever wanted, because god knows Sam isn’t doing that, can’t do that while he’s fucking his students. (Bonnie knows because she’d been working late one night that Sam had come home with some slight, barely legal thing, and Annalise had been out for a conference. He’d practically begged her to keep quiet, and when he’d seen that she hadn’t been convinced by his grovelling, he told her that he’d ruin her. That Annalise wasn’t ever going to believe her over him, and that nobody would want to hire her again if she’d been sacked. And so she keeps quiet, for Annalise’s sake more than his, or even her own.)

She sits down heavily at her desk, opens her laptop and tries to push the realignment of her moral compass to the back of her mind, and she buries herself in witness statements so deeply that she doesn’t notice that Annalise comes over and perches on the edge of her desk, looking at her seriously.

“I like pretty things,” she says, and Bonnie starts, looking up so quickly that something in her neck twinges and she winces.

“Sorry - I was miles away.”

“I like pretty things,” Annalise repeats, and Bonnie glances down at the ring on her finger.

“I figured as much.”

“Frank’s worried that you’ll go to the police,” she says, and Bonnie realises that the outward display earlier was to test her, was Frank’s way of trying to force her to flake out.

She raises her chin and looks at Annalise defiantly. “Why would I go to the police?” she asks. “Frank can worry all he wants, Annalise, I’m not a child.”

Annalise smiles, and it feels genuine. She nods slowly, like she admires Bonnie, and says “I told him there was nothing to worry about.”

Bonnie returns a half smile, and beckons Annalise around to look at her laptop, where she’s typed up a plan for tomorrow’s time in court.

 

Frank doesn’t have time to look offended when Annalise tells him that Bonnie would be better at obtaining the evidence for this case than he would.

“She’s got boobs,” she explains impatiently. “Go with her, stay near, in case she needs you.”

“I work for you, not her,” he says, and Bonnie rolls her eyes, shrugging her jacket on.

“And I’m  _ telling  _ you to do this, Frank. This isn’t for Bonnie, or for me, this is for the case. I think it’s time to grow up.” She pauses, watches them both. Bonnie’s avoiding her gaze, and Frank’s bristling, and she sighs. “Call me when you’ve got it, so I know that you’ve not killed each other.”

“If I was gonna kill her, you wouldn’t know anyway,” he mutters, and then physically draws back under the look Annalise fixes him with. “I’m kiddin’, Annalise. I’m not that much of a douchebag.”

They leave together, and when Frank makes some comment about her needing more than bright red lipstick to seduce their target or anyone, Bonnie decides that there's no way she's going to leave that hotel without enough evidence to lock up their suspect and then ten future ones.

 

“What did you say you do?” the man asks, a half smirk on his face as he lurches, somewhat drunkenly, toward Bonnie. She’s leaning on the corner of the bar, and has been watching him for the past five or so minutes.

“I’m a waitress,” she says, twisting a lock of hair around one finger, and ignores Frank lurking in her periphery. “Are you gonna buy me a drink?”

He leers at her and orders a double vodka with one gesture, and Bonnie cringes at the way he treats the bartender, entitled, like the sun shines out of his arse. Even Frank isn’t that bad, and if Frank is better than you at treating people well, that’s how you know you’ve got to try a little harder. She takes the glass and contemplates it for a second before she knocks the vodka back - she’s got to be drunk enough to let him take her back to his room, sober enough to keep her head, drunk enough to buy enough time, sober enough to know when (and how) to leave. And a little liquid courage hasn’t gone wrong for her yet.

When he kisses her, she keeps her eyes open, watches Frank disappear through the fire door, and then she lets the man usher her towards the lifts, his hands on her waist as he leans into her, whispering sleazy promises that no man has ever been able to keep for her, and he leads her to his room.

It takes Frank less than the quarter of an hour he’d given himself to transfer the fingerprints and smear the blood on the doorframe, and then he’s back in the lobby. Bonnie’s not there. He paces, waits ten minutes, snaps at the concierge who tries to talk to him, and after another five minutes he pulls out his phone and calls Annalise.

“Where is she?”

“She went up with him.”

_ “Why?!” _

“Because that’s what we  _ planned,  _ Annalise. She was meant to hold him up and distract him in the toilets, so I could get into his room. She was meant to meet me here after fifteen minutes. So what do you want me to do? Do I go up? If they see me- these places, it’s fuckin’ crawlin’ with CCTV.”

Annalise is so quiet Frank can feel her fury, and he knows that right now she’s beside herself. “Go and get her,” she says, hisses. “I don’t care if they see you, you go and you get her and you leave  _ together,  _ right  _ fucking  _ now.”

He wants to ask her why she gives such a shit, and he would’ve done two weeks ago, but there’s something heavy and leaden and cold in the pit of his stomach that feels like panic. “I’ll go,” he says. “I’ll go and get her, Annalise, okay? I’ll get her. Don’t worry.”

“Ring me, Frank. I mean it, you ring me  _ as soon  _ as you get out.”

He promises yes he will, and as he’s heading back toward the fire door, Bonnie calls him. He turns, and she’s there, looking dishevelled but in one piece.

“I’m sorry,” she says, breathless. “I’m sorry. He was persistent. Let’s go.”

 

“What the fuck was that about?” Annalise is fuming, standing in front of them, looking at them like a particularly disappointed school teacher berating the two worst pupils. “That was  _ never  _ part of the plan. You were supposed to get him drunk and get a confession.”

“I got the confession, Annalise-”

She holds up a hand and Bonnie falls silent.

“Look, she’s alright.” Frank’s indignant, tired. “She’s fine, and she got the confession, and I transferred some prints so there’s no goddamn way they can get out of this.”

Annalise isn’t having it. She looks close to tears, angry and relieved and like she doesn’t know which one to feel first. “You didn’t plan that! Neither of you-”

“We did, we planned it on the way over.”

“You didn’t plan it with  _ me.” _

“Look, that guy wasn’t gonna do anythin’, Annalise, he was drunk out of his mind, he just wanted to screw someone. And if I thought that Bonnie was really in danger I wouldn’t’ve let her go, alright? I wouldn’t’ve let her go and if she’d not appeared when she did, I would’ve gone and made sure he wasn’t doin’ anythin’.”

Bonnie looks at him, her eyebrows raised, but she doesn’t really have any time to respond, to voice her surprise at this sudden display of something that’s not complete bitterness toward her.

“If either of you take a risk like that again I’ll fire you.” She’s watching them both, and beneath the utter fury of her gaze Bonnie feels pinned. “I’ll have you pushing paperwork at Legal Aid if you can’t take calculated risks and play fucking safely.”

“C’mon, Annalise - we got it, didn’t we? We sorted it and everythin’ is fine.”

Annalise ignores him, and sinks down into her chair and dismisses them with a wave of a hand. Together, they leave, neither of them looking at each other nor talking to each other, both of them realising that something has shifted. Bonnie goes to the kitchen to make a coffee, and Frank disappears outside, and as she leans against the counter and waits for the machine to finish, she arrives at the realisation that she believes Frank when he says he wouldn’t have let anything happen to her. She realises that she feels safe with him.

It takes just one hour for Annalise to emerge from her study and tell Bonnie to take the rest of the night off. She wants to ask about Frank and to comfort Annalise in one breath, she wants to apologise, to reassure her that she knew what she was doing, and she hates the way Annalise is standing - with her arms crossed over her stomach, standing in the middle of the room barefooted and small looking. She looks lost, weary, vulnerable, and Bonnie's struck with a sudden remorse; she wants to take Annalise into her arms and hold her, to soothe away her worry lines with soft kisses, to hold her so tightly that she forgets all that she's worried about today. 

“I'm sorry,” Bonnie says quietly, standing. “Annalise - I know it was reckless but we got it. We got the confession and the case is pretty much won for us now.”

“Bonnie.” Her tone sounds as exhausted as she looks. “No case is worth your safety. No case is worth  _ anyone's  _ safety. But that man is dangerous, that's why he's on trial, and what if you’d not been able to get out? What if Frank had not been able to get to you? Or what if he  _ had,  _ and the integrity of the case would’ve been compromised and he’d walked free?”

Bonnie nods, looks down. “I’m sorry,” she says. “But none of that happened. I’m okay, Frank’s okay, and the case is okay.”

“Let me be pissed off with you both for the weekend, okay? Come back on Monday.”

“You’ll call if you need anything?”

Annalise watches her for a moment, considering, and then she half shrugs. “Frank will be around,” she says.

Bonnie nods, ignores the way her gut is twisting with a cold, cold jealousy. She’d almost slept with a soon to be convicted murderer, for Annalise, and still she’s kept on the outside, kept at arm’s length. She has to fetch coffee while Annalise and Frank communicate in whispers behind closed doors, and she wants to fight it now, to challenge her, to make her see all that she’s given up, all that she’s prepared to do. But Annalise is already walking away, leaving behind nothing but a faint smell of musky perfume and the echo of a closing door.

 

She doesn’t see Annalise again until Saturday night. She’s put on her nicest dress, her tallest heels, and she’s at some cosmopolitan cocktail bar - the kind with lots of empty space and neon blue lights, complete with a menu of cocktails that nobody’s heard of before. It’s easy to get lost in places like this, Bonnie thinks, as she sips at a dark purple cocktail that’s, for some reason, steaming. There’s a jukebox and it’s playing some bluesy techno music, and she knows that to the patrons of bars like this, she’s eighty percent leg and twenty percent coy charm and painted smiles. The anonymity is a comfort, and she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t enjoying the time off and away from work that she’d been given.

She’s snapped out of her reverie by the sudden arrival of a person who resembles more mountain than man.

“Well, ain’t you a real pretty thing,” he drawls. Southern.  _ Ain’t ya a reel purty thang.  _ He slides onto the stool next to her. Their knees are touching, until she shifts, offers him a small smile that screams she’s not interested, and turns away.

“What’re you drinkin’? Lemme get ya another one.”

She’s acutely aware of each murmur of conversation, each clink of glass and scrape of a chair leg, and the music that’s playing softly:  _ ‘all around me burdens seem to fall,’  _ the nameless artist is crooning, ‘ _ I’m not worried at all. I’m not worried at all’. _

“I’m good,” she says. “I’m waiting here for my partner. Thanks, though.”

“C’mon,” he says, leaning closer. His hand is on her thigh, his breath hot and tangy against her cheek. “Don’t be a bore, lady. I’ll show ya a good time. It’s a cryin’ shame you ain’t got no one to give ya what you really want. I know what ya want.”

“What I want is for you to remove your hand,” she says firmly, pushing his hand from her. “And to leave me alone.” She can feel panic crawling up her throat, metallic and sour as he stands up, presses himself against her, and holds her shoulders hard enough that she’s sure she’ll bruise.

“You sure ‘bout that?” he asks, and she closes her eyes, gives an experimental jerk, but he just presses closer, holds her tighter - so tight that she can feel his fingernails break her skin.

She looks around, sees that nobody is watching, and if they’re watching they’re not seeing. She looks at the glass that’s sitting mere inches away from her fingers. If she stretches them out she could reach it without him noticing, and then she could smash it either against him or the bar and he’d be bleeding before he even realised what she’d done.

“Excuse me?” the sheer tenacity of the tone behind him causes him to turn and loosen his grip on Bonnie, who slides from the barstool and steps back, quickly, pressing her fingers to her lips and concentrating on keeping it together.

Annalise is standing there, all tight lipped and coldly furious, glaring at the man as she winds an arm around Bonnie’s waist.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asks, and if Bonnie hadn’t been so shaken she’d have shivered at the way Annalise’s fingers spread over her hip as she pulls her close. 

“What does it look like to you?” Annalise asks, and she’s so quietly incensed that he just shakes his head and picks up his drink.

“Fuckin’ dykes,” he mutters. “All of y’all need to get over yourselves. Ain’t nobody in here tryin’ to screw you.”

He leaves, and Bonnie physically wilts, rubbing her forehead slowly. “Thanks,” she says. “I was going to glass him. This was probably the better way to deal with it.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. Thank you.” A pause, and the tiniest twinge of regret when Annalise lets her go. “Are you here with Sam? Is he back now?”

She sighs and leans past Bonnie to order a drink. “Sam’s still in Tennessee,” she says, cagily, and Bonnie glances behind her, sees Annalise’s coat on the back of a chair.

“You’re here with Detective Lahey?”

For a second, Annalise says nothing, and then she rubs the back of her neck and nods. “Yes. Well, I was. I think I’m going to send him home.” She looks at Bonnie and the corners of her lips quirk into a small, devilish smile. “I think he traded any semblance of personality he was born with for those rippling biceps.”

Bonnie chokes on a laugh, and Annalise thanks the bartender for her drink, sipping it thoughtfully.

“Great in bed,” she says. “Not much fun to talk to. Give me a minute.”

Bonnie nods, and watches Annalise leave and walk back to Nate. She leans over the table and says something to him, and she watches his expression turn crestfallen, the poor guy, and he leaves. Annalise comes back with her purse and coat and watches Bonnie carefully.

“Do you want a drink?” she asks, softly, and Bonnie nods, sitting down again.

“Please.” She settles, receives her drink with a smile, leans on the bar and lets herself get lost in Annalise, in the wine red dress she’s wearing, the way her foot is moving to the slow beat of the music, in the way she smiles when she thinks Bonnie’s not looking.

_ ‘All around me burdens seem to fall… I’m not worried at all. _

_ I’m not worried at all. _

_ I’m not worried _

_ At all.’ _

 

The journey back to Annalise’s house from the courthouse is unlike anything Bonnie has ever experienced. Annalise is silent, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that it’s a wonder it doesn’t snap, and Frank, for once, joined Bonnie in the backseat. None of them are talking, the road noise is deafening, and the only thing Bonnie can see of Annalise is a muscle in her jaw, jumping furiously, as though she’s grinding her teeth. The intermittent splash of streetlights paint Frank’s face daunted, and Bonnie closes her eyes as she lets her forehead rest against the cold window, and waits. Waits for the car to stop, and then the two of them trail to the house a few paces behind Annalise.

Once they get into the house, she slams the door and turns to glare at them both.

“If you two would just do your jobs and  _ talk  _ to each other, that wouldn't have come so close,” she spits. Now is not the time for responses - she doesn’t want them to speak. “If I actually had to depend on you both we'd never win again. You’re fucking awful at your jobs, and you weren’t when I hired you, so if you could just stop trying to constantly one up each other and sabotaging my cases, if you could actually  _ concentrate  _ on something other than your fucking selves, and do. Your. Jobs. That’d be great for me.” She glares at them both, and shakes her head. “Acting like children, the both of you. Go away and sort out your differences, or find some other charity to take you in and let you work for them.”

They stay silent in the darkness of the hallway as Annalise flexes her fingers and starts up the stairs.

“Lock the door when you leave,” she says curtly, and then she’s slamming the door to her bedroom, leaving them in darkness so thick and silent Bonnie feels like they’ll need to wade to the door to get out.

She starts to turn and leave when Frank shakes his head.

“Let’s go for a drink,” he says. He runs a hand through his hair and exhales heavily. “I dunno about you, but I’m not really feelin’ up for a bollocking like that again.”

Bonnie watches him for a second before she nods, shortly. “Sure.”

“For Annalise’s sake, if nothin’ else,” Frank mutters. “And if not for her sake, then for mine. I really wanna keep this job.”

 

They end up in some seedy pub of Frank’s choice. The kind with cheap pints and a precariously mounted dartboard as tinny versions of Johnny Cash songs play overhead. He orders them both shots of absinthe, and looks impressed when Bonnie takes her two and knocks them back without so much as flinching.

“You wanna be careful with these,” he begins, throwing his own back with a grimace.

“Frank, I’ve had absinthe before,” Bonnie snaps, and then shakes her head, slumping against the sticky bar. “Who do you think I am, honestly?”

“How should I know? You don’t exactly seem to like people knowin’ anythin’ about you.”

“Well, if you’d quit being the literal personification of a split lip, maybe I’d tell you some things.”

He watches her for a moment before he raises an eyebrow and shrugs. “Alright,” he says. “Fine. Tell me somethin’ that’s gonna make me like you.”

“Order me another double and I might.”

“You’re an expensive date,” he mutters, but does as she says, and together they knock back another two.

“Alright,” Bonnie says, leaning back in her seat and looking around the pub. “I’m amazing at pool and I bet I could beat you.”

“I said somethin’ that’ll make me  _ like _ you.”

“Get to know me over the pool table,” she fires back. “Or are you a bit shit at it?”

He loosens his tie and shrugs off his jacket, and, just like he’s in some badly written Tarantino film, he rolls up his sleeves. “Fine,” he says. “We’ll do this your way.”

 

She crushes him even when her vision starts swimming and she loses count of the empty shot glasses they’ve passed back over the bar.

“So what’s your damage with Annalise?” he asks as he takes a sloppy shot at potting two reds. “Have you had her?”

Bonnie looks up at him and narrows her eyes. “Have you?” she asks, and he shrugs.

“I asked first.”

“No.”

“But you want to have her?”

She ignores him as she takes her shot and pots a yellow, and then moves around the table to go again. “Have you?” she repeats.

“No.”

She looks up at him in surprise. “Really? You’ve not slept with her?”

“So that’s a yes then,” he says, leaning on his cue. “You want her. You jealous? You thought me and her were screwin’?”

“Would you blame me? What’s  _ your  _ deal then, if you two aren’t fucking? Why are you so jealous of me? You in love with her?”

Frank sighs, watches her pot the last yellow and then go for the black. He’s far too drunk to be having this conversation, doesn’t like the idea that he’s about to be totally honest with the woman who’s  _ this _ good at pool when she’s hammered.

“Let’s sit,” he says, gesturing back to the bar where there’s more drinks waiting.

Bonnie pots the black, lays down the cue, and complies. She slides back into her seat and he sits too, still holding the cue.

“You’re weirdly good at pool,” he says. “I don’t love Annalise- well, okay, I do, but not like that. I don’t wanna sleep with her. She ain’t really my type.” He’s not looking at Bonnie, has fixed his gaze somewhere on the dirty floor. “I owe her a lot, is all. And I wanna- nah, fuck it, I  _ need to  _ make sure that she knows that  _ I  _ know what I owe her. She got me out of some real bad shit, straightened me out, gave me a life and a job and some prospects. I want her to know that I don’t take her for granted. And you know what that’s like, no? She pulled you out of some shit too, I know it.”

He looks up now, smiles lopsidedly at the way she’s looking at him; the alcohol’s totally cleared her of her inhibitions and the shock that’s written across her face is painfully clear to him.

“I know. I know, it’s a surprise that I’m not a complete douchebag, ain’t it? So I don’t wanna sleep with her. I’m not in love with her. She’s just like family to me, and we protect that, don’t we? We protect our families.”

“Wouldn’t know,” Bonnie mutters, and then shakes her head. “Well that makes one of us.”

“One of us? What’re you on about?”

“One of us who doesn’t want to sleep with Annalise.”

Frank grins, reaches forward to mess with some of the empty shot glasses in front of him. “I knew it,” he says. “Called that one a mile off. You look at her like she’s the fuckin’ sun, don’t you? You know that, no?” He looks up at Bonnie. “Sam’s cheatin’ on her, and she’s cheatin’ on him, you might be in with a chance.”

“Don’t fucking mock me,” Bonnie says, but she shakes her head and orders them some more drinks. “I don’t understand how he could do that, y’know?”

“They’ve got more skeletons in their marriage closet than anyone else you’ll ever meet,” Frank says. “It’s messy.”

Bonnie nods glumly and hands Frank the shot that appears in front of them.

“Surprised you’ve been keepin’ up with these,” Frank mutters, thanking her before throwing it back. “Listen, I’m sorry I’ve been such an insufferable fucker. I am.”

Bonnie looks at him and grins, colour high on her cheeks. “Can I get that in writing?” she asks. “I’m not banking on either of us remembering this tomorrow.”

“I guess we’ll have to wait and find out,” he says, and then he groans. “God, workin’ tomorrow is gonna be like the slowest death.”

Bonnie nods slowly, and laughs. “Eight pints of water before bed, or something, right?”

 

The summer ends sooner than anybody likes. Sam gets back from his secondment and Bonnie and Frank bet on how many people he’d slept with in Tennessee, and then there are new students, new lectures to plan, new cases to work, and for the first time since entering Annalise’s house the first time, Bonnie feels like she belongs there. The only thing that refuses to be fixed is Sam, and Bonnie tells him that she doesn’t need to keep seeing him. Her mental health, she tells him, is levelling out, and to keep talking about it is to keep it in her mind, and she doesn’t want that. So the only interaction she ever has with him is when he comes home from work and she’s still there, or when he appears and he and Annalise end up yelling at each other and slamming doors.

She decides that she hates him.

After she and Frank finally start working  _ together,  _ Annalise ends up with a win streak longer than any of her previous ones. They orbit each other perfectly, tying up any loose ends that the other leaves, falling into rhythms and mutual understandings that she never thought she’d be able to have with another person, and when they start taking it in turns to do coffee runs and to buy flowers to place around the house, Annalise notices.

“What’s this?” she asks one day, crossing the room to smell a bunch of orange lilies, a small smile on her face. She looks over to Bonnie, one eyebrow raised, and Bonnie shrugs.

“Thought you might like them. Brightens the place up a bit. Frank’s idea.”

“I never thought I’d say this, but I think I miss the days you were each bringing me heads on bloody spikes.”

“No you don’t,” Bonnie says, half distracted by the way Annalise is looking at her - her eyes soft and warm and  _ happy. _

“No, you’re right,” Annalise replies. “It’s been years since anybody bought me flowers. Thank you.” She walks over to Bonnie and presses a light kiss to her cheek, and in the time it takes Bonnie to register Annalise’s hand on her waist and the chaste kiss and the way her stomach plummets and her heart tries to crawl up her throat, Annalise is gone again.

When she gets home that night she wraps herself in her softest blanket and finds herself thinking of nothing but Annalise, thinking of her eyes and her smile and the way it’s been years since Sam, or anyone, bought her flowers.

 

“Bonnie,” Frank's jogging down the driveway to meet Bonnie as she gets out of her car. It's late, she's just been to the police station to obtain a copy of a restraining order that Annalise needs for a case, and the look on Frank's face isn't one she likes. 

“What?”

“They're at it again.”

She looks toward the house and rubs her forehead. “Does she wants us to go?”

“Didn't say. He just came straight into her office and they started yellin’. I think she knows about his, uh…  _ students.” _

Bonnie exhales. “If he tells her we know, she’ll kill us.”

“Why would he?” Frank asks. “He ain’t gonna want her thinkin’ he’s been screwing anybody else for as long as he has.” His phone buzzes and he looks at it, a slow smile spreading over his face as he taps out a response.

“Bitch, please,” Bonnie says, rolling her eyes. “So she knows about his ‘students’, but does she know about yours?”

“Hey, I’m not the one on trial here.” But he’s grinning. “Well, I’m gonna get gone. Don’t get in the middle of that one, alright?” He inclines his head toward the house. “It’s messy.”

She nods, and folds the restraining order in half before she starts heading up the drive. Dimly, she can hear Sam shouting, and it’s muffled, so she can’t yet make out what he’s saying. She hears Frank get into his car and leave, and decides that she’ll close the front door a little harder than usual. The shouting abruptly stops as the door slams, and the sudden silence makes Bonnie shudder.

“Annalise?” she calls, walking to the stairs slowly, trepidatiously. 

Annalise appears at the top of the stairs, and even from here, Bonnie can see that she’s been crying. Her arms are curled around her waist protectively, and Bonnie knows that the fury she can read in her posture isn’t directed at her.

“What?”

“I got the restraining order,” she says, holding up the paper. “And- and I got his criminal record and the records of the calls Katie made to the police.”

Annalise nods shortly and comes down the stairs, and together they go into her office. She immediately pulls out some vodka and two glasses, and Bonnie sits, watching Annalise pour the alcohol with the slightest tremor.

“Are you okay?” Bonnie asks quietly, reaching out to grasp Annalise’s hand. To her surprise, she doesn’t pull away - she just turns her hand and closes her fingers around Bonnie’s, and then pushes a glass over to her. “Annalise, is there anything you want me to do? If you need somewhere to stay…?”

“I’ll be fine, Bonnie, don’t worry.” Her voice is quiet, rough around the edges, and she finally lets go of Bonnie’s hand and takes a sip of her drink. “Let me see this evidence, then. Do you think it’s enough?”

“It might be,” Bonnie offers. “I hope it is.” She’s not thinking about the case at all, she’s watching Annalise flick through the evidence, seeing the way she’s so tense, fighting so hard to appear  _ okay,  _ and it’s a look that Bonnie knows very, very well. She misses the summer, misses Annalise in jeans and a t shirt, pottering about in the garden, misses her smile and her easiness, the lightness that she adopts when Sam’s not around. She misses making her laugh, misses watching Frank make her laugh, and all she wants to do is take her away from Sam, away from this house, away from the things he’s shouted at her and the things she believes about herself.

“Stop worrying, Bonnie,” Annalise says quietly, and when she looks at her, she’s smiling. It’s a small, sad thing, and for one single second, Bonnie’s terrified that Annalise is going to kiss her. “I know that look. Stop worrying about me, okay?”

Bonnie nods, and Annalise sighs, pulls a face. “Let’s call it a night,” she says.

“Is everything going to be alright tonight? You can stay at mine if you want to.”

“He’s the one who made the decision to bring this into the open. He’ll be getting comfy on the sofa tonight.”

Bonnie nods again and takes a minute to just look at Annalise, to take in the way the shadows soften her face, the way the half-light of the desk lamp makes everything feel way more intimate than it should. She realises then that she’s in love with Annalise, in a way that goes far beyond finding her attractive. When she thinks about her she  _ aches,  _ and when she thinks about Sam and the way he treats her and the way he dismisses her, she’s filled with such an icy fury that she thinks she’d like to kill him. And right now she wants to tell her, she wants to tell her how her heart clenches when Annalise smiles, tell her that she’s the most beautiful woman that Bonnie’s ever seen, and tell her that everything she’s  _ ever  _ done has been to get to this point, this point right now, to be sitting in the gloom with her with vodka on her tongue and a strange fire in her blood that’s making her entire body thrum with the desire to kiss her, to be kissed by her.

“What are you thinking?” Annalise asks softly, seeming so unlike herself as she runs her fingers over the rim of her glass.

“Nothing,” Bonnie says, shaking her head. “Nothing.” She stands up. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Call, if you need anything.”

 

In her nightmares, the only thing that changes is her location. Sometimes she’s in her flat, sometimes she’s in Annalise’s house, in Frank’s apartment, at the courthouse, in the university buildings. The location is inconsequential. What happens is always the same. Her father appears, wizened and wasted and unnaturally fast for his age. He tells her the same things, always; first, that he's missed her. Second, that she ruined his life, and that it will take more than getting him locked up and hoping he'll die inside to make him go away. And then he comes for her, strong, furious, and he bruises what feels like every single inch of her, chokes her, and then she's a child again, just a kid, sobbing and pleading, begging him to stop.

And then she wakes, her phone’s vibrating under her pillow and she grabs for it blindly. “Hello?”

“Listen, I know you think this carpoolin’ thing is lame, although fuck knows why - I'd have thought this environment shit was right down your liberal lane - but you could, like, not leave me hangin’. We're gonna be late and her majesty will murder us.”

“Frank-”  _ it's Frank. It's Frank, you're okay. _

“Who else?” She can hear the road noise from where he is and there's something in his voice that makes her cry. “Bon? Where are you?”

And that's all it takes. His sudden realisation that she isn't okay, and his quick and quiet concern sends her spiraling, untethered, crumbling into a mess of relief and gratitude and disbelief and fear, and she's pressing the phone to her ear so hard that it hurts, and she's sobbing. Low, throaty cries that make her whole body shudder, and she's only half aware of the sound of a car door slamming and Frank talking to her quickly. 

“Bonnie, listen to me. C’mon, Bonnie - talk to me. Where are you? Are you at home?”

She manages to tell him that she is, and he asks if the door is unlocked. No, she tells him. 

“Can you get to it for me, Bonnie? Can you open it and let me in? Are you hurt? C'mon, open the damn door.”

She gets up, grabs a hoodie and pulls it over her shoulders and opens the door. He's standing there, looking worried in a way Bonnie didn't know was possible. It's as though in the seconds it took him to get to her door he  _ became  _ worry. He's shrouded in it, it's dripping from him, and he takes her by the shoulders, bends to look her in the eye. 

“Someone hurt you?”

“No,” she says, but she's shivering, and she thinks her desperate pain must be written all over her free for the world to read. 

“Talk to me, Bonnie. I can't help you if I don't know what's going on up here.” He taps her temple with his finger gently. 

So she tells him. She tells him about her life and the way she suffers still, she spills it all and he says nothing, lets her talk, lets her get it out. And when she falters and hesitates and pauses, groping around in her mind fog for the right words, he waits, something just behind his expression contorted with anger. She thinks she can see it in his eyes, in the straight line of his lips, that reckless fury that he'll never outgrow. 

“Annalise know?” he asks once she's finished, and his hands are restless, like he doesn't know what to do with them. 

“She knows,” Bonnie says quietly, her voice still small and tired. “She's been so amazing. And Sam, he talked to me for a while but I could never - I could never tell him the truth. I always talked with Annalise more than him anyway, especially about this. She just…” she wipes her cheeks with her sleeve. “She gets it.”

“Bonnie…” He doesn't know where he can possibly start. So he just bites his tongue and opens his arms and when she leans into him he closes his eyes, and quietly promises that he'll make her father suffer, if it's the last thing he does.

“We're so late,” Bonnie eventually mutters, pulling away from Frank's embrace. “I'm sorry. She's going to kill us.”

Frank shakes his head. “You go get ready,” he says. “I'll wait in the car and I'll talk to her. Tell her we're coming.”

Bonnie exhales, suddenly eager to shower, to drink some water, to put on a pretty dress and rejoin her own life. “Thank you,” she whispers, and she doesn't miss the genuine smile that creeps onto his face. 

“Don't,” he says. “This is what families are for, Bon.”

As she’s showering, she thinks that she gets it. She understands that this family of hers, this small one she’s found, that they’ll go to the end of the world for her, and that she will, unequivocally, do the same for them, every single damn time they need her to.

 

When they get to the house, Annalise makes no mention of the time. She just sits on the sofa with Frank while Bonnie sits down at her desk, and tells them both that there’s some fresh coffee in the kitchen. Frank’s distracted by the girl he’s seeing (sleeping with? In love with? Who knows? Not Bonnie, and certainly not Frank), and for a second the room’s quiet, silent save for the tapping of keyboards and the turn of pages. Bonnie watches Annalise pick up her mug, curl her fingers around the hot china and tuck her legs beneath her. She’s not wearing any heels, and she’s gazing absentmindedly out of the window. The clarity of the morning sun is something that Bonnie has always found to be one of the most beautiful things, but Annalise takes it to a whole new level. Everything is bright, soft, awash with the scent of fresh coffee and different perfumes, and Bonnie can’t find it in her, even in her post-nightmare state, to be annoyed with the students. They’re still in that fresh-faced bright-eyed and bushy-tailed part of the semester, all of them still looking at Annalise reverently, all of them so, so eager to please. She can feel the nightmare loosen its grip on her, feel the fog lift slowly, and she remembers that she loves this life of hers.

And then Annalise shifts, sips her coffee, and looks straight at Bonnie, and the spell’s broken. Frank gets up suddenly, asks Bonnie if she wants a mug, and Annalise stands up too.

“Work to be done,” she says, and turns to look at her four students. “I need your prelims in an hour.” She moves to her office door and pauses to catch Bonnie’s eye, and then inclines her head in a silent invitation.

Bonnie gets up, takes the mug of coffee that Frank hands to her, and follows Annalise into her office, sitting as Annalise closes the door and comes to sit next to her, their knees bumping.

“Rough night?” she asks quietly.

Bonnie sips the coffee and it scalds her lips. “More of a rough morning,” she says. “I’m sorry we were late. Frank was on time, it was my fault. Must’ve slept through my alarm.”

“He said he was pretty worried.” Light, conversational. Annalise won’t even look at Bonnie, she’s looking at her nails with such a forced air of casualness that it’s almost funny.

“He doesn’t need to be. Neither of you do. Sometimes it just happens, and I’m okay.”

“Would seeing somebody help?”

“Annalise.”

“No, would it? I don’t think I’m about to recommend my husband again, but I can put you in touch with some other people.”

_ “Annalise.  _ Even when I was supposed to be seeing Sam I was talking to you about it more than I ever talked to him. I don’t need to see anyone, I promise.”

“I think I’m going to ban you from promising that you’re okay,” Annalise says, and now she looks at Bonnie, and now Bonnie can see the concern deep in her expression, the frustration of not being able to offer a quick fix. “It’s alright to not be.”

Bonnie doesn’t know what to say. She simultaneously doesn’t want this moment to end, she wants to stay swathed in Annalise’s forceful worry, wants to be told that she’s a good person who doesn’t deserve the bad things that have been done to her, but at the same time she’s tired of these conversations, tired of feeling like she’s something that has to be pitied.

Before she can make up her mind on how she’s feeling, Annalise stands, rests her hand on the side of Bonnie’s neck, and she’s warm and soft and gentle, and Bonnie smiles before she can help herself.

“You know where I am if you need anything,” Annalise says, and her hand stays where it is as Bonnie stands up too, and they could, she thinks - she could lean forward, just centimeters,  _ mere  _ centimeters, and she could kiss Annalise Keating. Kiss her, knowing that on the other side of that door there are four students, and Frank, and somewhere else in the house, Annalise’s asshole husband. She feels Annalise’s fingertips move in her hair, and wonders whether she’s thinking it too, whether she can feel this thing that’s making Bonnie’s hummingbird heart batter her ribcage. And then she realises, Annalise is looking at her lips, and Bonnie shivers, and then Annalise pulls her forward, wraps her arms around Bonnie’s waist, and brings her into the tightest hug she’s ever received. Bonnie melts into it, feels her inhibitions collapse around her as she winds her arms around Annalise, holding her as though they’re falling through space and they’re the only tangible things left in the universe, and through the mess that her head is today, the only proper thought that will formulate is that she’s smaller than she looks. She’s still taller than Bonnie, but only by a small bit, and then even that is obliterated when Annalise pulls away, runs both of her hands through Bonnie’s hair, and offers her a strange little smile.

“We best get working,” she says. “Else they’ll start talking. And Frank’s not gonna keep them in line when he’s trying to screw a half of them.”

 

It takes just one more month for Sam to leave. Whether it’s of his own volition or not remains to be seen, but he leaves, slamming doors and throwing things into a small suitcase while yelling about how much of a poison Annalise is as Bonnie arrives. He totally ignores her, gets into his car, and then he’s gone, and Annalise is sitting in the kitchen at the breakfast bar, totally unfazed as she sips some coffee and flicks through her phone lazily.

“Alright?” Bonnie says, setting her bag down on the table and taking out some food she’d brought over, ready to put in the fridge.

“Did you bring some chocolate?”

Bonnie holds up the chocolate and ice cream she’d brought, and smiles. “Of course. And some of those salted chips you like.”

“You’re a god send,” Annalise groans, sliding from the stool and coming to help Bonnie put the food into the cupboards. “There’s some fresh coffee in the pot. Sam didn’t seem to want any.”

Bonnie smiles tightly, and looks over at Annalise as she sorts out the dips. “Are you okay? Is that a stupid question?”

“It probably is a stupid question, but it was a long time coming. I asked him to leave last week. It’s taken him until now to find somewhere to stay.”

“Where is he staying?”

“With Hannah, who else?” She pops open a jar of salsa and grabs a bowl for the chips. “They’re welcome to each other.”

Bonnie pours herself some coffee, silently admiring, once again, the way she and Annalise are like two parts of a well oiled machine, moving around each other like it’s been choreographed. “Is this it now?” she asks softly. “For good?”

“I like to think so,” Annalise answers, and there’s no trace of remorse in her expression. She leans on the counter, in a puddle of sunlight, and scoops out some salsa with a chip. “He got some white trash pregnant. A student.”

“Christ.”

“I don’t think she’s going to abort it,” she says. “She came over asking to see him. I thought she was going to just demand some amount of money to keep quiet or to pay for an abortion, but she came around asking for his actual support. Not financial. She said she wanted a baby with him. So… Sam’s gonna be a father.”

“He’s not staying with her though, right?”

“God knows.”

“Annalise, I’m sorry…” she reaches out, covers Annalise’s hand with her own and squeezes. “He’s such an asshole.”

“He’s an asshole I married,” Annalise says, and then shrugs. “That’ll teach me not to screw around with somebody else’s husband. Turns out it’s not so nice when the tables are turned.”

“He wasn’t good to you.”

“I know.”

“You deserve better.”

She smiles, and it’s real. “I know.”

“Want me to deal with the kids today?”

“Mm. You’re gonna have to while I go to court with this Henley case. Unless we give them the day off and you come with.” She offers Bonnie the bowl of chips and pours herself another coffee. “God, maybe one day we’ll be busy again, huh? Knee deep in drama and murders and whatnot. Maybe someone should murder Sam.”

Bonnie laughs, quirks an eyebrow. “I’m sure me and Frank could manage that. Might be a bit too obvious though.”

“Ah yes, my dream team,” Annalise teases, draining her mug and standing. “You’re right, I think everyone would just blame me anyway.”

“So…” Bonnie leans on the counter, watches Annalise with a smile on her face. “Best not to kill Sam then?”

“Best not.” She looks at the screen of her phone and pulls a face. “Twenty dollars says that Hannah turns up tomorrow to get the rest of his things and ends up yelling at me.”

It’s Bonnie’s turn to pull a face and shudder. “Let us know when she’s coming,” she says. “So me and Frank can be here and so I can give you your twenty dollars.”

 

And however bad Bonnie was expecting Hannah to be, she, as always, surprises her. She lets herself into the house, a maelstrom of anger and misplaced superiority as she packs some suitcases, all the while muttering about the “injustices of the world” and shooting Annalise glares sharp enough to kill.

Bonnie and Frank stay downstairs per Annalise’s request, and the both of them wait in the hallway, silently, straining to piece together the fragmented raised voices that meander down the stairs intermittently, and then the bedroom door is being slammed open and Hannah is marching down the stairs, a case in each hand, and she’s yelling - practically screaming - at Annalise, who’s standing at the top of the stairs.

“I’m surprised you didn’t just- just have him  _ killed,  _ you evil bitch! That would’ve suited you just fine, wouldn’t it? Then you wouldn’t have to deal with the shame of having him love somebody else more than anyone could ever love you.”

“Don’t think the thought hasn’t crossed my mind,” Annalise answers frostily, crossing her arms as she starts down the stairs.

“I don’t know why he’s the one moving out-”

“Because he’s the one who’s been screwing nineteen year olds.”

“This is  _ Sam’s  _ house! This is the house we grew up in, it’s not for some- some black  _ whore-  _ yes, he told me about your boyfriends, those men you’ve been bringing back here - he told me about how you pushed him away, about how you treated him! And I told him, I did, I told him not to marry you, I  _ told  _ him what you were really like, you money-grabbing bitch. And now you’ve got this house! Because he’s not the kind of guy to fight for something that’s rightfully his, because he just wants to keep the peace. God, our father would be turning in his grave if he could see this, see his house lived in by…” she looks around, looks at Frank and Bonnie, like she’s trying to come up with a word that sufficiently describes the way she feels about them. “By you immoral, evil fucking gold diggers. You’re utterly, utterly unlovable, Annalise. A fucking poison. And you’ll die alone, I swear it. You’ll die in this house and not one single person is going to give a shit.”

“I think that’s enough,” Bonnie says, surprised by the open enmity in her tone, and as she speaks, Frank steps forward, grabs Hannah’s arm, and propels her toward the front door.

“I think you got what you came for,” he growls. “And I think it’s time to go.”

She’s protesting, saying something about how they’re all as bad as each other, and Bonnie follows Frank almost blindly, thinking about how wrong Hannah is, and how much she’d like to hurt her. Together, they usher her right to her car, and Frank makes sure he’s out of Annalise’s sight before he backs Hannah against her car and leans down, talks to her quickly and quietly.

“If you or your brother so much as breathe in the direction of this house,” he says, “if you come near Annalise, if you contact her, if you talk to her again, I’ll break your fuckin’ arms and legs for you. Tell your fuckin’ brother.”

She splutters, and then goes silent when she realises that he means it. She looks over his shoulder to Bonnie, who’s standing stoic and silent.

“We can make your lives hell,” Bonnie adds, staring straight at Hannah. “And believe us, we will.”

She shoves Frank away from her, pale faced and tight lipped, throws the cases into the trunk and gets into her car. She drives away without even putting her seatbelt on, and Frank steps back, satisfied.

“Think she believed us?” Bonnie asks.

“I think she’d be a fuckin’ idiot not to.”

They look at each other for a second in something like disbelief before they head back to the house, back to Annalise.

“She’s not dead and buried under my porch is she?” Annalise asks tiredly. They find her in the kitchen, a tub of ice cream open in front of her.

“The less you know…” Frank says, and then shakes his head. “No. She’s not. But I don’t think she’ll be back here in a hurry, anyway.”

“Thank you,” Annalise says quietly, looking up at them both. “Really.” And then she looks at Bonnie and smiles. “I think you owe me twenty dollars.”

“Hey, I never said she wouldn’t!” Bonnie says, and she’s grateful that Frank just grins and grabs his jacket, muttering something about seeing them both tomorrow before he leaves.

Bonnie saunters over to the table and grabs a spoon from the drawer before she sits opposite Annalise and pulls the tub of ice cream toward her silently.

“Do you want to stay here tonight?” Annalise asks. “We can have a drink.”

“I can’t,” she says, sighing. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to pick up my drycleaning and then I’m gonna crash in front of the telly. I’m dead on my feet.” She pauses, looks up at Annalise. “You can come to mine though, if you want?”

Annalise considers it, pulls the ice cream back over. “Throw in some shit takeaway food and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“I’m sure I’ve got some menus stuffed down behind the couch cushions.”

Annalise holds up her phone as she puts the lid back on the ice cream and takes it to the freezer. “It’s all done on apps now anyway,” she says. “God, Bonnie… Welcome to the twenty first century.”

Bonnie rolls her eyes and reaches for her bag. “You gonna pack?”

“You got a spare toothbrush?”

“Yes.”

“Then no,” Annalise says. “I think there’s been enough packing happen in this house recently.”

“I’ve got some t shirts you could wear, or something. We’ll sort something out.”

 

Annalise sitting cross legged on Bonnie’s sofa, wearing one of Bonnie’s paint-splattered Jefferson Airplane t shirts that’s about eighty sizes too big for either of them, a carton of chow mein between her legs and a glass of martini in her hand isn’t a sight that Bonnie’s likely to forget any time soon.

They’re both on the sofa, Bonnie’s lit candles around the room to keep the smell of Chinese takeout from lingering, and over her speaker they’ve got Ray LaMontagne playing. It feels so dreamlike, so domestic, so comfortable and normal and natural that Bonnie can’t help but wonder whether some things in the universe are just supposed to happen. She doesn’t believe in any gods, doesn’t take any notice of the zodiac bullshit, doesn’t believe in destiny or pre-determined paths in life for one single second, one  _ fraction  _ of a second, but this… The way Annalise is talking to her, the way she’s acting; so achingly free to be herself, so relieved and comfortable, there’s got to be something else at play. There has to be something beyond the two of them that’s made this happen, that’s engineered this situation down to this very evening, down to the martini in her hand and the warmth that seems to reach her very core.

They don’t talk, and as she focuses her gaze on her food, she feels the back of her neck prickle. When she looks up, she catches Annalise looking at her with something tentative and untranslatable on her face. Their eyes meet and Annalise smiles apologetically before she looks away, looking unbearably smudged around the edges, with her softly curled hair and the shadows that dance over her face from the flickering candles. Quietly, she wonders how Sam could have had this and could throw it all away so easily, so carelessly. She wonders how you could be married to Annalise and still want for more, and then to  _ act  _ on that want that seems so redundant, so counter-productive. She wonders whether Sam knows yet that he’s thrown away the very best thing that could have ever happened to him, or whether it’ll take him - what? Days? Weeks? Surely no more than a month to realise that he’s shot himself in both feet, that he’s cut off his nose to spite his face, and a thousand other idioms that can’t really ever translate the total idiocy of not just letting Annalise go, but throwing her to the curb as though she’s not the most amazing woman on the planet.

“You’re very pensive tonight,” Annalise murmurs, leaning forward to put the empty food container down on the coffee table. “Want to share?”

“It’s nothing,” Bonnie says. “Sorry, I’ve been miles away. Do you want another drink?”

Annalise shakes her head, and smiles. “I believe I was promised some shit TV.”

“You were,” Bonnie grins, reaching around the sofa cushions for the remotes.

“That’s why I love you, Bonnie. You always make good on your promises.”

She pauses for just one second, registering  _ that word,  _ that word that was said to her just now without the subtlest hint of irony or jest.

“Well. I do my best.” She digs out the remote, finally, and turns the television on. “Do you wanna watch a movie? I’ve got quite a few.”

Annalise kneels on the floor in front of Bonnie’s DVD collection while Bonnie takes the empty cartons to the bin and tidies the kitchen up before bringing the bottle of martini through.

“Picked one?”

Annalise turns, holding up a copy of  _ The Hours,  _ and Bonnie smiles, nodding. “Good choice,” she says, taking it from her and slotting the disk into the DVD player.

“Meryl Streep gets me feeling all sorts of things,” Annalise says, grinning as she stands and gets comfy again on the sofa. “She’s an incredible woman.”

“The bit at the start?” Bonnie says, switching the main light off and coming to join Annalise on the sofa, offering her the bottle as she settles. “Where the three of them are getting ready. That bit’s just...”

“It’s genius,” Annalise agrees, topping up Bonnie’s glass and then her own. “I’m glad you’ve got such a good taste in films.”

“Oh please, was there really any question?”

Annalise rolls her eyes and they both go quiet as the film starts, and Bonnie panics only mildly when Annalise shifts so that she’s curled up tightly and lays across the length of the sofa, her head in Bonnie’s lap. Bonnie looks down for a second, as though she’s expecting her mind to be playing tricks on her, because Annalise wouldn’t ever - would she?

Once she successfully convinces herself that this is, actually, reality, she lets her hands find their way to Annalise’s hair, lets her fingers thread themselves through her hair and play with it slowly, and the film’s been on for one hour when Bonnie realises that Annalise has fallen asleep. She lets it finish, not paying much attention to it as she twists Annalise’s hair around her finger carefully, gently brushes it back from her face, and she’s so beautiful like this that Bonnie could cry. Eventually, though, when the title menu has played through so many times that the film restarts, she sighs, and taps Annalise gently on the shoulder.

“Annalise?” she says softly. “Annalise.”

“Hm?”

“The film’s over.”

“Is it really?”

“Yep.”

Annalise stretches out, but doesn’t move. She’s so warm and sleep-addled that Bonnie feels bad for waking her, feels bad for disturbing what was probably the first bit of rest she’d managed to grab in the past week or so.

“Do you wanna go to bed?” Bonnie whispers, her fingers still combing through Annalise’s hair slowly. “I set up my bed for you earlier, it’s all ready.”

“Where’re you gonna sleep?”

“Probably on the couch.”

“Bonnie,” Annalise groans, her breath warm against Bonnie’s leg. “Don’t be stupid, I’m not gonna steal your bed and make you sleep on the couch.”

“It’s not stealing when it’s offered,” Bonnie points out. “Besides, you need the rest. Don’t even try to tell me you don’t.” She tugs Annalise’s hair gently and then her hands fall away, and Annalise sighs.

“Is there any point fighting you on this?”

“No point at all.”

Annalise sits up slowly, rubbing her eyes and rolling her shoulders, wincing as she does so. “Are you sure?” she asks, her voice slow and liquid and sleepy.

“Positive. Go ahead, you can use the shower and help yourself to breakfast tomorrow morning if I’m not up and you’re hungry. But wake me up whenever you want, alright?”

“Thank you.” Annalise runs a hand through her hair, pushing it back from her face as she yawns and stands up. “You’re an angel.”

“I know.”

They smile at each other, and then Annalise shuffles off to bed, all long legs and soft cotton, and when Bonnie drags a blanket from the cupboard and settles down on the sofa, she realises that it smells like Annalise. She falls asleep with a smile on her face, hugging a cushion to her chest and listening to the silence.

 

When she wakes up it's still dark, her face is wet with tears and her heart's not beating so much as trembling, and then she notices that Annalise is in the doorway. And then Annalise is climbing over the arm of the sofa and squeezing into the space between Bonnie and the cushions before she wraps her arms around Bonnie's waist, tightly, pulling her against her.

“You were crying,” she whispers, her breath warm on the back of Bonnie's neck.

“Did I wake you?” Her hands find Annalise's and grasp them, and Annalise's thumb grazes over her midriff slowly. 

“No, I got up to get some water.”

Bonnie nods, wipes her cheeks with the heel of her hand before she settles. “You don't have to stay.”

“I know,” Annalise says, and she's close enough now that Bonnie can feel her lips moving against her skin. “I quite like it here though.”

Bonnie nods, too tired to argue, and for the first time since she can remember, her nightmare doesn't linger. She falls straight back to sleep, with Annalise holding her so tightly that she almost can't breathe.

 

The next time she wakes, it’s morning, and Annalise is still with her, their legs tangled together, and it takes her a few seconds to become aware of the fact that Annalise’s hand has somehow found its way beneath her t shirt, and is resting happily just below her breasts. She sucks in a breath, tries to ignore the butterflies that appear in full force, and tries to work out whether she wants to get up and put some coffee and breakfast on to be ready when Annalise wakes up, or whether she wants to stay there on the couch forever.

She doesn’t have to wait long before the decision is made for her. Annalise stirs, mumbles something, and Bonnie turns her head so she can kind of see the other woman.

“Morning,” Annalise mumbles, and both of her arms move so she can stretch and yawn and rub her eyes.

“Hi,” Bonnie whispers, and rolls onto her back so she can watch Annalise properly. She groans, rests her head on Bonnie’s shoulder for a second before she rubs her eyes again.

“Sleep okay?”

“Yeah, thank you. I’m sorry about last night… You didn’t have to stay on the couch with me.”

“Mm, did it help?”

Silence. And then, “yes.”

“So it was worth it. Shut up arguing.”

Bonnie smiles, tries to stop, to contain it, and fails. “Do you want some breakfast? I can make us some pancakes.”

“God, I haven’t had pancakes for years.”

“A resounding yes for the pancakes then.” Bonnie sits up and stretches, sees the way Annalise is watching her with a sleepy smile on her face, and then Annalise reaches forward, rubs her back slowly.

“Let me shower first though,” she murmurs. “Or I’ll never wake up properly.”

Bonnie nods, stands up. “The towels are in the cupboard on the right when you go into the bathroom,” she says. “The nicest ones are at the top. I’ll get some coffee on the go as well.”

She runs to the bathroom before Annalise gets up so she can brush her teeth and attempt to make her hair look halfway decent, and then she goes to the kitchen to make breakfast for them both.

When Annalise emerges from the shower, fresh faced and looking surprisingly well-rested and chipper for a woman who just spent the night on a couch with another woman. She’s not put any more makeup on, and Bonnie’s tummy does a little flip when she sees that Annalise has found and is wearing one of her old Stanford hoodies, and as far as Bonnie can tell, she’s not wearing much else.

“Smells amazing,” she says, sliding into one of the seats at the table, smiling as Bonnie slides a plate in front of her and then sits opposite her with her own.

“Any plans for today?”

“I think we’re picking up a new case,” Annalise says. “I’m not sure yet though, it’s… it’ll be a hard one.”

“Oh?”

Annalise just nods and tucks into her pancakes, clearly unwilling to say much more about it. “Thank you for having me over,” she says. “It was so much better than sitting around at home on my own last night.”

“Thanks for coming,” Bonnie returns, feeling her cheeks heat up each time she looks up at Annalise, each time she follows the zip of the hoodie and notes the way she’s not zipped it all the way up.

“Your couch is more comfortable than mine. I think I’ll have to move in.”

“Move in to stay on the couch?”

“Why not?”

Bonnie laughs, pinned beneath Annalise’s gaze.

“Or maybe it wasn’t  _ just  _ the couch, hm?”

Bonnie blushes, full force, and she’s saved from having to reply by Annalise’s phone buzzing on the table in front of her. Annalise grabs it, sighs, and answers it. Just over half an hour later she’s got dressed, apologised about a thousand times, and had to leave.

Bonnie doesn’t mind. She’s a little disappointed, perhaps, but when she puts the pan and dish in to soak, and then goes to the bathroom, she realises that even though Annalise put her dress back on, she’s gone home with Bonnie’s hoodie anyway. Her tummy makes its millionth flip in the last twenty four hours, and she showers with a dopey little smile on her face.

 

It’s nine in the evening when Bonnie gets a call from Frank. He assures her that everything is fine, but he and Annalise need her at the house, and can she come? She tells him that she’ll be there in twenty minutes, less than, and gets out of her pyjamas and puts on a pair of jeans and a shirt, screws her feet into her sneakers and leaves.

By the time she gets to Annalise’s, it’s pouring with rain, the kind that batters the roof of the car so hard and persistently that it’s hard to hear anything over it. She’s got an awful feeling just beginning to form in the pit of her stomach, and when she gets there and gets in and the two of them look up at her silently, it only gets worse.

“What’s going on?” she asks, vaguely out of breath as she comes to sit down. “Annalise?”

Annalise takes her laptop and turns it so that Bonnie can see what’s on the screen. It’s a news report, and Bonnie scans it quickly. Something about a man accused of rape and GBH and ABH, who was sentenced to just three months in prison, and one of his victims appealing for a retrial, a new sentence. And, at the bottom, that the case is being taken by Stanford College’s professor Annalise Keating.

Bonnie looks up at them, and Annalise pours three tumblers of vodka, handing them one each.

“We need a plan,” she says. “We’re going to trial tomorrow. They only gave it to me this morning.”

Frank heaves a sigh, runs a hand through his hair, and now Bonnie looks closer she sees how tired he looks, how stressed.

“What do we need?” Bonnie asks, taking a sip of her drink. She’s glad they kept her out of it until they realised that they couldn’t do it without her - glad that they thought about the adverse effect on her mental health that this could have, and glad that they realised that they do need her.

“A confession. He never actually pleaded guilty to the rape. That’s what the judge used to defend that sentencing, so, ideally… We need an explicit confession. And I’m no expert on men like that but that doesn’t seem like something he’d go around telling people.”

Bonnie nods. She knows all about the justice system and the way it likes to fail victims of sexual abuse, and the thought that she could maybe manage to effectively help somebody else makes her feel more hopeful than she’d ever imagined she could. But getting a confession like that… that feels impossible.

“And if we can’t get that?” she asks, taking a long drink from her vodka. “What then?”

Silence, until Frank shifts. “Nothin’, then,” he says. “There’s no new evidence. If we can’t give them somethin’ new then we all we have to rely on is gettin’ a more human judge this time.”

Bonnie nods again. “I get it,” she says, and the three of them let silence settle again, silence broken only by the rain outside and the occasional sound of glasses being put down against the desk.

Eventually, Bonnie speaks up. “We did it before,” she says slowly, and Annalise looks at her, frowning.

“Did what?”

“We got a confession before. Me and Frank. Men tell you anything if you sleep with them.”

Frank’s eyes widen as it twigs, and he shakes his head. “Yeah, you’re not serious.”

“Why not? If it’s really that important, then we might as well give it a go.”

“Bonnie, ten years ago, you’d’ve been just his type.”

Annalise is watching them both interact, an odd expression on her face, and then she realises what they’re saying and shakes her head.

“Frank’s right,” she says thoughtfully. “That’s too dangerous, Bonnie. I’m not sending you to him for that. I’m not sending you to him for anything.”

Frank sits back in his chair, satisfied. “How about I plant somethin’?” he asks. “New DNA means they gotta open it back up?”

“That’s not going to work,” Bonnie says. “Why would they look into new DNA, he’s not being accused of anything new. Listen, Annalise… I can put on a dress, some heels, get him drunk, loosen him up, get him back to his house… I know how to get men to talk.”

“Bonnie-”

“If there’s no other way-”

“Of  _ course  _ there’s another way,” Frank interrupts. “Goddamnit, Bonnie, there’s always another fuckin’ way than the way that involves throwing you in front of a rapist.”

“Why is this a problem to you now?” she snaps. “It wasn’t when we did it before, Frank.”

“Don’t,” he says, looking at her evenly. “Bonnie, don’t even fuckin’ go there.”

She rubs her forehead, apologising to him quietly before she turns to look at Annalise. “All I’m saying is that that’s the only way we’re gonna be able to do this with such a short amount of time. And I’ll do it, Annalise, if you need me to.”

“What’re you tryin’ to do, Bonnie? You tryin’ to prove yourself or somethin’? Annalise,  _ tell her  _ that this is crazy.”

Annalise is just listening to them, her fingertips pressed against her lips as she thinks. And then, finally, she says: “I think she’s right. I think this is the only way we’re going to be able to do this.”

“Annalise, you can’t be serious.” Frank looks like he’s going to throw up, or throw  _ something.  _ “You’re seriously considerin’ this? This is fuckin’  _ mad.  _ How would we protect her? He ain’t in a hotel, he’s in his  _ house.  _ I can’t hang about in a lobby this time. What happens if he hurts her?”

“I can handle myself, Frank. I can make my own decisions and I’m adult enough to accept the consequences.”

He slams his tumbler down on the desk, and Annalise shifts, looking straight at Bonnie.

“Are you sure?” she asks quietly.

“Yes, Annalise - if it’s what it takes I’ll do it.”

“How would you get in?”

“I could park the car up his road, tell him my engine blew and I need somewhere to wait, keep out of the rain while I wait for a tow.”

“Fuck off are you actually doing this. Annalise, you can’t let her do this!”

“Frank!” Annalise stares at him.

“You’re supposed to care about her, you’re supposed to love her! How in the hell is this a good idea? Fuck the case, fuck the confession, this isn’t  _ fucking  _ happenin’.”

“I can do this, Frank, nothing happened the last time-”

He stands up abruptly. “Tell it to me straight, Annalise. Are you lettin’ her do this?”

“It’s worth a try,” Annalise says quietly. “If Bonnie doesn’t mind, and she said she doesn’t, then we might as well try to make life a little easier for somebody else.”

“By throwin’ Bonnie under the fucking bus?”

“Frank! Jesus Christ, I can make my own decisions, I know what I can handle. If this guy goes free then there’s just one more person who has to have a shitty life, until he fucks over the next person.”

“You’re serious about this?”

“Yes.”

He looks at Annalise, who spreads her hands. “She’s offered, Frank, I trust her to know what she can handle.”

He shakes his head, and Bonnie doesn’t expect his expression of fury to hurt her as much as it does. “I’m not bein’ involved with this,” he says, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. “This is fuckin’ stupid. See you in court.”

“Frank-”

He leaves, slamming the front door as he goes, leaving Annalise and Bonnie alone. They sit without saying anything for a minute, and then Bonnie looks up at the ceiling and drains her glass. “Can I get a refill?” she asks. Annalise obliges, silently, and Bonnie drains that one too. “Can I borrow a dress?”

 

The rain doesn’t ebb, and even Annalise’s dresses and perfume and heels aren’t enough to make this feel like a genuinely good experience, but Bonnie’s so driven by her need to be the person she needed when she was a kid that she can’t possibly back out now. Annalise is sitting on the end of her bed, watching Bonnie get dressed without many comments. They’d managed to find a dress that fit her right, and when Bonnie opens her arms, gives a half turn, Annalise smiles.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” she asks. “Please don’t do this for me, Bonnie. If you’re seriously doing this, you need to do it for you.”

“I am doing it for me,” Bonnie says. “And I’m doing it for that poor girl whose life has been ruined.”

Annalise nods slowly, and then stands. “I’m driving you,” she says. “So I’ll be there when you need to leave.” She grabs a small rectangular device and passes it to Bonnie. “This will record everything.” She’s looking at Bonnie, her expression caught somewhere between admiration and utter, unbridled terror.

“Stop it,” Bonnie says firmly. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

And so they get into Annalise’s car, and Annalise drives in silence to the address that they’d found, and parks up the road, just out of sight of the house.

“I’ll hear everything,” Annalise says quietly, showing Bonnie some earphones. “If anything happens, I don’t care how you tell me but you need to say something, just tell me straight, and I’ll be there.”

“Okay,” Bonnie says, looking straight ahead as she takes a deep breath, her hand on the door handle. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

Annalise has to fight every instinct in her body that’s screaming at her to take Bonnie into her arms, to hold her so tightly and to not let her do this. She can still hear Frank, still see the expression on his face, and her stomach twists. “Good luck,” she says. “I’ll be right here.”

 

When Bonnie presses the doorbell, she’s soaked from the rain and feeling vaguely nauseous, and when he opens the door the first thing he does is look her up and down. She misses Frank.

“Hi,” she gasps, rubbing her forearms. “My, uh, my engine blew just up the road. I called the recovery and they said it’s gonna take them a while to get to me because of the time and the weather… They told me I can’t stay in the car because it might be dangerous, and you’re the first person to open the door! Can I come in for a bit? Just until they come? They said they’ll ring when they’re almost here.” She gives him her best Lost Look, and she knows that she looks small and sweet and there’s no way he’ll be able to see or tell the way her heart is pounding, screaming at her to turn back.

He considers her, rolls a toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other, makes her stand out in the pouring rain for thirty more seconds before he nods slowly, grinning. “Yeah, alright.” He steps aside. “Come on in. I’ll get you a towel.”

She reminds herself that Annalise can hear everything, is technically with her, and it’s that which gives her the strength to step over the threshold and hear the door close behind her.

“You wanna drink?” he calls, heading into the house. “I’ll get ya a towel. What’s your name, honey?”

“Maddie,” Bonnie calls softly. “What drink are you having?”

“You wanna beer? Or are you more of a vodka kinda girl?”

“Vodka, please,” she says, catching the towel that he throws in her direction.

“Good choice. My name’s Danny.”

She starts drying off slowly, scrunching her hair with the towel carefully as she looks around the house. “Danny,” she repeats, in nothing more than a whisper, and then she tells herself why she’s here, what she’s here for, and becomes a version of confident that translates to him.

He comes back through, hands her a drink with a grin, and she thanks him, perching on the edge of his sofa.

“Thank you for inviting me in,” she says, smiling at him. “It’s real helpful.”

“That’s alright, Maddie,” he says, and just as Bonnie’s about to sip her drink, there’s another knock on the door.

Dan looks confused, a little annoyed, and strides to the door. “Shit, is it my lucky night?”

“I’m here to pick Maddie up,” Annalise says, and the panic that’s tinging her voice makes Bonnie’s stomach drop. She stands, moves to the door, slips out, past Dan.

“The fuck?”

“She texted me where her car broke down,” Annalise says. “Nobody else answered their doors, until you.” She looks at Bonnie, and says “I brought my car, I can take you home.”

Bonnie just goes along with it, nodding. “God, thank you,” she says. “I don’t know how long the rescue people are gonna take.” She looks up at Dan, who looks a little suspicious, but he shrugs. “Thanks though,” she tells him, and together they leave.

“Annalise-”

“Don’t,” she says. “Not yet.”

They walk up the road, and Bonnie’s thankful that the rain has slowed down to a drizzle. Annalise doesn’t talk to her until they get into the car and close the doors.

“I couldn’t let you do it,” she says lowly, looking straight at the steering wheel. “I’m sorry. Thank you for volunteering, but I’m- I couldn’t let you do that for any reason.”

“There’s no other way, Annalise, I don’t want to lose thi-”

“There’s  _ always  _ another way, Bonnie, Frank was right. God, what was I thinking?”

“Annalise-”

“No, Bonnie, that’s not- it’s not happening. Ring Frank, tell him to meet us at the house.”

Bonnie rings him, quietly tells him that they didn’t go through with it, that they need him, and after a long silence he says that he’ll be there. She’s not imagining the relief in his voice, and it triggers her own relief, makes her wilt, rubbing her forehead.

“Thank you,” she says eventually, and feels Annalise turn to look at her. “I would’ve done it. And I wouldn’t’ve regretted it, if it worked. But thank you.”

“I know,” Annalise replies, coming to a stop on her driveway. “I never doubted you, Bonnie.”

Bonnie turns to watch her, and smiles, and it feels foreign. “Really?”

“Of course I didn’t. God knows I couldn’t doubt you if I tried.”

The engine cuts off and they’re left in sudden darkness and silence. Bonnie can’t stop looking at Annalise, reads her expression, sees the worry, and the admiration, and the love that’s there.

“I’m so sorry, Bonnie. I can’t believe that even for a second I considered letting you do that.”

“What else are we going to do?” Bonnie asks. “Annalise, I really want to-”

Annalise leans over the gearstick, takes Bonnie’s face into her hands, and kisses her quiet. “God, you’re remarkable,” she whispers, so close that Bonnie can feel her lips move against her own. “You’re-”

Bonnie kisses her, and they’re both trembling, both fevered and suddenly desperate for this touch, fumbling with seatbelts and the space between them and their hands are everywhere, their lips barely brushing as they shift closer, awkwardly, frustrated, and then they manage it - both of them twisting the right way so that they’re as close as they can be, and Annalise’s hands are in Bonnie’s hair, holding her close as they kiss, and kiss, and kiss. Bonnie’s head is spinning, her blood charged with something that makes her whole body thrum. The rain picks up again, and then there’s a load tap on Annalise’s window and they jump apart, startled.

Frank’s at the window, grinning at them both like something slightly manic. “As hot as this really is,” he mouths, “don’t we got a case to crack?”

Annalise sighs, flips him the finger, and he disappears into the house, pointedly leaving the door open.

“Come on,” Annalise says, softly, reaching out and letting one fingertip run over Bonnie’s lips. “Let’s get this done. I think I’ve got an idea. And then after we do this and send Frank home, you can stay tonight, if you want.”

Bonnie smiles, feels like her heart may burst from her chest right before she combusts. “Can we give the couch a miss this time?” she asks. “Your sheets look amazing.”

Annalise leans forward and kisses her once more, and then pulls away. “They  _ are  _ amazing,” she whispers. “Give me an hour or so and I’ll prove it to you.”


End file.
